Humanity 101
by InsanityisReality
Summary: Drabble collection. Ratings will vary. Exploring what it's like in the minds of those who have to fight, and some who need to.
1. Chapter 1

Apologize

Rated: K+

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry I killed your first son, and I'm sorry I'm about to kill your second. I'm sorry I never told you what it was I was doing all those nights I came home late and bruised. I'm sorry I didn't let you hug me whenever you wanted. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry you found out too late that he was one of them, a traitor to the family, but that isn't his fault. I'm sorry you both asked me thousands of times what was wrong and I looked you right in the eyes as I lied. I'm sorry I skipped school, and yelled, and pushed you both away until you just left me alone altogether.

I'm sorry I took away your niece. I'm sorry I never got to tell you how you guys were the only reason I fought for so long.

I'm sorry you've had to arrange for one funeral too many, and now as I give this final order…

I'm sorry you now have to live it all over again.


	2. Chapter 2

Family

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs, and all rights go to K. A. Applegate and Scholastic Books.

My name is Rachel.

In a way I'm sick of seeing my first name separated from my last. Like a tree without branches. I am removed from my family, in all ways now. It's not the same, sitting down for a family dinner, or opening presents on Christmas, or even sleeping in my own bed. Old Rachel is cut off from all of this, no longer an innocent child but something more- no less. Something has been taken from me and I don't even know what it was. I just know it's gone and I won't be getting it back.

But I suppose this is what happens, the side effects of no longer being a kid and now fighting as a soldier in a galactic war. Alone. I have no army, just five friends, and even that isn't enough for me nowadays.

I think maybe this thing inside me was always there, always waiting for an excuse to… I don't know. Kill? Be killed? It kinda just blends together now. What's the difference anyway? What am I? I look at my sisters, my mom, my dad, and I don't see myself in any of them anymore. When did that happen? I used to be able to relate to Jordan, or see my smile in my mom, my dad's laughter mirroring mine. Now I don't notice any of those things. Why?

The others know what I am too. I see the way they look at me whenever we get done with a mission, the way their eyes regard me with that one question I don't even know the answer to- _when will she snap?_

When indeed.

I grew into this thing- this something that's not me and yet is completely me. Maybe it's the grizzly, or the elephant, or the murderer. Maybe I'm a psychopath. Or perhaps Visser Three is finally rubbing off on me. What a scary thought.

"Rachel! Time for dinner!"

I was staring at the wall again, and my eyes burned a bit. Get yourself under control Rachel, this isn't normal behavior, the Yeerks will figure you out.

In a way I wish they would. Give me a reason to unleash this inside me on the outside. Give me a reason to rip all of you open with my bare hands. Just give me a bloody reason to be _bloody_.

The grizzly is roaring.

"Rachel, can you pass your sister the butter, please?"

"Are you okay, Rachel? You seem out of it tonight."

"Really Mom? _Just_ tonight?"

"Jordan! Be nice to your sister."

"It's just school mom. I'm fine. Really."

"Okay, if you say so…"

I want to scream. I want to morph. I don't want to be here anymore. I need out.

I need _out_.

…

Five children watched from one side of a screen as the grizzly bit down on the snake, and just minutes later, they watched as the grizzly charged forward a final time.


	3. Chapter 3

Sugar

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs

Rachel was like sugar, sweet and poor for my health. Addictive with her smiles, her blond hair, her laugh, her battle cry. I loved all these things about my Rachel. She was so beautiful.

I forgot when we started kissing, it was sometime between the Ellimist giving me back the ability to morph my human body and… Tom's death. Sometime in between that, I knew.

Her lips were always so soft, I adored the shiver they gave me when my tongue would swipe across them, to taste her. She always tasted good. I remember a time when she smeared some chocolate on her lips, she had brought me a cake from some birthday party she and Cassie had gone to earlier that afternoon. The frosting was almost too much, I'd forgotten what simple things tasted like.

Rachel liked to remind me of things like that, the simple facts of life that humans took for granted. Hair was soft, and so was skin. Burgers were the god of all foods, and french fries were a close second. Ice cream melted when you left it out in the sun too long. And the body of another against yours was the most blissful feeling in the universe.

I can recall what she looked like the last time I saw her, furry and terrifying. Bloodthirsty. Bad for me. Sometimes I want to remember her face, when I'm all alone. I want to remember what she was besides the bear- but I can never make out her features. Just a blur of a memory. Every once in awhile I'll see her blue eyes, or a smile, or the arch of an eyebrow.

I'll spend hours immersed within her, the feeling of what she gave me. But only until the bear comes to destroy everything. I want to believe the bear and my Rachel are two different beings, I want to believe that my Rachel would never willingly leave me.

My Rachel…

No- no longer mine, gone a lifetime ago. I know this now. Maybe I've even come to accept it.

 _Tobias_ …

 _Kiss me again…_

We never made it past the kissing. Ever. And now I regret it, I regret not showing Rachel how much I loved her. I wanted to give myself to her. Still do.

In the back of my mind I hear roaring.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm Sorry (Parents Version)

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs

I watch as you go, and somewhere inside my mind I know it's for the last time. But what that in itself means, I have no clue. Call it a mother's intuition, call it a gut feeling, or call it pessimism, I guess in the end it's all the same. You've grown so much over these past few years, grown decades further than even I have. When did that happen? You think I didn't notice it, or that I brushed it off as teenage hormones, but every time you met my eyes as I asked what was bothering you, and I saw a pain that ran so deep it seemed alien it me. I wanted to hold you, I wanted to tell you I would always protect you. I always stopped myself though. I'm sorry…

 _You don't say goodbye as you go out the door, and I watch your mother as her face falls into an abyss. I don't understand what that look means, but I do know I've seen it before. At Tom's funeral. I've been meaning to tell you how much I love you, not in the way I've always said it, but with some big speech of how you've grown into a fine man and I couldn't be more proud of you- but then I brush off the idea because I'm not like you. I don't do so well with words of encouragement and passion. And for that I'm sorry._

I wanted to hold you in my arms before you slipped away, I wanted to save you one last time. _But I know you would've shrugged me off like you did all those times before my eyes were opened._ And I want to tell you it's not your fault, _that if you could have avoided it you would have_ , _but that never helps does it?_

I guess all that's left to do now is wait for your return. _And when you come back through that door,_ or even if you don't, _I'm going to tell you how much I love you,_ and demand you never leave me again.

 _I guess my parenting wasn't as top notch as I gloated all those times to my buddies while we watched football. Even now I bash my fist into my skull wondering when it all went to hell,_ and how I could've been so blind. My friends always said what nice boys I had, how well behaved, how smart. _Though I guess I couldn't see past that to the war general and slave master I shared a house with_. It's sad, really, and I wonder sometimes if I wasn't meant to be your mother, if someone else would have done a better job, would have fought alongside you. _Hell, maybe anyone else would have been able to tell that our family had gone to shit_. Maybe I saw _only what I wanted to see._

I'm so sorry for letting you suffer alone, _for leaving this god awful world on your shoulders._ I'm sorry that I couldn't shield you from _everything that eats away a person from the inside out_.

 _ **But for the love of all things, son… Don't leave us again.**_

Chapter is dedicated to: purple radiance, thank you for your kind words.


	5. Chapter 5

Numbers

Rated: K+

First is the look. That one look you always gave me- _it's wrong Jake, this is wrong_ \- and I want to say I'm really sorry it had to be you, Cassie. Nobody deserved this fate, especially not you. God, how I wish I could have spared you.

Twice, you asked me twice if I could kiss you. When the others weren't around, when the war was away from our thoughts, you asked me if I could just indulge myself in you for a tiny moment. And I wanted to say yes, I wanted to take ahold of you and never let you go. I later considered if I should have just taken all of you when you offered. I really did want to.

Three times Marco asked me why I would let you go, right before I boarded that fighter, he had asked me a final time. _Why did you let her go, dude? She meant the world to you._ Three times I told him what I knew to be the truth. _Because I don't deserve her_. And I don't.

Four is how many times you looked right into my eyes with that silent accusation, before we cut off contact completely. _How could you, Jake?_ I know, I killed your best friend, I know. But what did you want me to do?

 _You have to let me do it Jake. You know you have to, it's the only way out of this._

She was right, you know. The Ellimist has shown me how much longer, how much harder, how much _bloodier_ it would have been, if she hadn't sacrificed herself. I no longer regret it. Not anymore. She did the right thing… and so did I.

Cassie, I don't ask for your forgiveness, I guess I don't need it. I'm at peace. I've had to convince myself of this, at least five times, before I started to believe it. But I do now, and I accept my life for what it was. I was a only a chess piece, but I was a good one.

I guess after death… Isn't so bad. The Ellimist is doing me a favor. I feel like I'm in a movie theater, watching the best film in a hundred different versions, all different endings.

Did you know that we would've had six kids? Or at some point we would have traveled to Europe seven times before I would have caught some strange european disease and died in a hotel room? Turns out you aren't as good with people as you are animals.

I've seen our wedding eight times, and our wedding night nine (I re-watched a scene where you wore just overalls to bed). I've heard you laugh at the same joke ten times before you told me to stop telling it. Ten freaking times, Cassie. You pretended to laugh at a lame joke just because I told it. You are such a sweetheart.

But these are just numbers Cassie. Numbers in an equation too far beyond my comprehension. You and I are just single digits in a never ending infinity of numerical code. One, we grow old together. Two, I die young. Three, we lose our first born. Four, we lose our son. Five, I take your best friend. Six, you take my heart. Seven, I steal your virginity. Eight, the invasion never starts. Nine, I end up old and alone. Ten, you are my wife. Eleven, you become a doctor. Twelve, you take my life.

It never does end. And I just sit and watch, enjoy it all and take it in. I let each of these numbers become a part of me.

I let each possibility become a memory.


End file.
